What Works Best
by I-type-by-candle-light
Summary: Non-Massacre and Post-War. After the war, peace finally became the reality. No more were there fake peace treaties that were to be broken or country alliances to rise tension in the world. No, the peace was real and the world can finally set a strong foundation for future generations. And how do you make a future generation one may ask? To have a family of course!


**Author's note: Hey guys, I thought I'd give this writing ordeal another go. The last time I wrote a fanfiction was when I was 13, now I'm 19 and trying to become a better writer. So constructive criticism is welcomed. **

**The story that I wrote when I was 13 is still up and in the past 7 years of reading ItachiXSakura fanfiction I have noticed a major shift in the plotlines of this fandom's fanfiction. It went from Sakura joining the Akatsuki/Sakura being kidnapped to more AU plots, post war plots(for obvious reasons) and non-mass plotlines. My story "Maybe Not" is an example of the times before Itachi died in the manga and the shift in plots. If you want me revise and rewrite that story just say the word and I will fix it to the best of my abilities. Maybe new readers of this fandom will get a glimpse of how ItachiXSakura fanfiction was before Itachi passed away. Or maybe not(pun intended), I may not live up to your expectations, but that's where the constructive criticism comes in. **

**Now more about this story, I will update once a week. I'm not exactly sure how long this story is going to be yet either, however, I want to reach past 10 chapters! I hope you all like this or even love this story! :) **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

It was five AM when Sakura slammed down on her alarm to shut it up till the next day. She stumbled out of bed to get ready for her shift at the hospital 'Today is a seven to two' shift she groaned inwardly. She jumped into the shower while it was still cold just to wake herself up. She shivered and then sighed in content as the water became warmer and warmer as it cascaded down on her lithe body. She was a strong woman of 24 and in her prime as a ninja. She easily reached the status of jonin after the war had ended, so easily that they actually handed the title to her as a reward for her brave and impactful efforts in the war. Reaching for the shampoo she twirled her wet hair mindlessly wondering if she should just go back to her chin length. She then sighed 'no, I'll keep it. Konoha men always prefer women with long hair.' Shortly after the war ended, there was a boom of families.. Even most of her friends settled down and were well on their way to having children. And while the picket white fence dream wasn't on the forefront of her mind, it was saddening to not be able to keep up with the conversations of diaper changing at lunches and to be turned down for drinks when babysitters couldn't be found and that there was a lack of sparring partners now in the training grounds. The ninja occupation hadn't slowed down greatly, but considerably enough to the point where it was hurting the economy of the world. It wasn't hard to find decent missions, but it was difficult to a degree to find ninja's willing to leave their families in order to serve the country. And it wasn't even just Konoha suffering this. It was all 5 shinobi countries. Sakura had taken on more and more missions than ever lately because of this. It had made her wallet fuller, but her energy drained. She pushed on anyways.

Finishing up her shower she dried off and got dressed in her medic uniform. 'Five forty-five huh? Time for some breakfast' She smiled to herself and began to make eggs and bacon with toast. She read a magazine while she ate and sighed at the news, there was a sensationalist article about Naruto, the Fifth Hokage, "sneaking out" of her apartment last month and that he must be cheating on Lady Hinata with Sakura. No, Sakura knew the real story to this piece of crap writing. He had played a prank on her by making her detachable spray nozzle at her kitchen sink stick so when she turned on the water, it got the water all over her and while it was a childish prank, it had worked perfectly to her chagrin. "They must have gotten him while he was sneaking out...that idiot" she mumbled to herself. Looking at the time she noticed it was time to walk to work. The spring weather was amazing this time of year. The mornings were crisp with dew on the flowers, it was too good to just jump from rooftop to rooftop.

A group of ANBU dashed from treetop to treetop at high speeds. Their captain was hurt badly and if they didn't get back to the village soon, or at least to a checkpoint, he would die. "Hey hurry it the fuck up! He can't die! I'm not about to deal with the repercussions of him dying." The man in the bird mask looked his female teammate who was a considerable distance from him and his injured captain. "Well we'd already be back in the village if you helped me with him. He's heavier than he looks and stay closer would you?" Genma rolled his eyes behind his mask 'sigh, women. Think they can just boss you around in any kind of situation. This is why I'm single...' He looked at his captain to assess his wound. It looked pretty grisly, a hole that went through his body that was about three inches in diameter was still trying to clot itself with blood. Genma didn't know how his captain was still clinging to life. They were confronted by two nuke nin in the wee hours of the morning.

The mission was to guard a daimyo from assassins. Seems simple enough for some chunins or jonins to accomplish, but the team assigned to the mission was almost demolished with just one jonin on the last thread of life to send a message. And it was a pretty clear message too considering that the word "next" was etched into his back and limbs of the others were thrown across the floor. Blood had invaded every inch of the daimyo's bedroom. From what daily reports that had been kept, the team had guarded the daimyo in his bedroom. This was a smart choice since the room only had one known exit and a secret exit in the closet space for situations like this. The secret passage even had a maze of tunnel work under the house and eventually led to a cave. It was noted that he was a rather paranoid man in his middle ages. He would even go to the tunnels under the house to spy on this maids just in case they tried to steal something or to look up their kimonos... Actually, this was how the man had found out there was a hit on him. He was peeking out from under the kitchens floor boards when he saw that under a kimono there was an assortment of kunai and weapons that no maid should have.

So an ANBU team was assigned to reach the safe house and wait for the assassins to find it. The house was hidden yet it was a no more than a few miles from the cave. It wouldn't be too hard for nuke nin at this caliber to find the house and get to their target. This was to the ANBU's advantage however since they wanted to the bastards to find them. No ninja, friend or foe, should have to die in such a gruesome way. Judging on the evidence it looked like they were ripped limb from limb. The ANBU reached the safe house the following day after the massacre.

Night soon fell and tensions had risen to a new high. Who would want to take this man out anyways? Sure he was an old, paranoid pervert, but he was an effective and loved lord of this region. He got the job done and had made this region of the Fire country more prosperous than his father before him. And it made it all the more vexing when you thought about the assassins. They weren't just some ordinary ones. They were top tier and wanted everyone to know it. They'll definitely be keeping one alive for some questions that needed some answering to.

The night had been going by rather slowly. The minutes were crawling along and the team wondering if this was the night they would be confronted or if they would have to wait for the next day or even till next week. Hopefully they could all go home successful and alive soon. Around four AM they had felt on of the daimyo's guards chakras disappear. Then one by one all of his guards were gone from this earth. 'Damn, these people are really good. I didn't heard them or feel them. They know this too. They could have easily snuck past these civilian guards, but they wanted us to feel them disappear. Maybe they wanted us to react? Or are they just really fuckin' cocky?'' Genma thought to himself. The team eyed each other from their hiding spots in the bedroom while the dummy daimyo was "sleeping" in the bed. Then while waiting tensely for the fight to begin they felt a strong energy radiate from the center of the room. 'When the fuck did they get in here?!' Genma was overwhelmed by the sheer force of chakra in the room. He had never felt something so raw and suffocating before. He quickly looked up to notice his taichou had already engaged with the assassins. There were only two...they had killed so many people so easily and efficiently and they were only a team of two.

**So that's the first chapter. In this chapter I was trying out a more descriptive method of writing. Next time there is definitely going to be more dialogue. I actually find this chapter to be quite boring, but I feel that way towards every first chapter of every story. Just gotta getting everything set up in the first or even second chapter! I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll be coming back for more! **


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